Please sign and ask your organization(s) to endorse this statement protesting Israel’s onslaught against the Palestinians and to demand an end to the illegal Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Contact Canpalnet at support@canpalnet.ca or call 604-298-9638 for further information or to have your name listed on the statement.

This is a campaign of people living in Canada and of Canadian citizens resident abroad.

It is the responsibility of all people in Canada to insist on the inviolability and universality of human rights. As such, and compelled by our government’s failure to meet its obligations to the Palestinian people, we call for an immediate change in Canada’s Middle East policy.

While proclaiming that all peoples in the region have a right to security, successive Canadian governments have condoned Israel’s systematic violation of the Palestinian population’s basic human right to live free of military coercion and violence.

Collective punishment, land expropriation, home demolitions, extra-judicial killings and the daily humiliation of an entire population provide fertile soil for the growth of brutality and the perpetration of atrocities. Continuing military occupation is the root cause of the present spiral of violence between the Palestinian and Israeli populations.

We urgently demand that the Canadian government assume its international responsibilities regarding the illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem. We call on the Canadian government to publicly and unequivocally demand the immediate and unilateral withdrawal of all Israeli military forces from the Palestinian Territories occupied in June 1967 and the dismantlement of illegal settlements.

We demand the Canadian government uphold the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention regarding civilian populations under military occupation (enacted following the atrocities of World War II). We call on the Canadian government to respond to Israel’s continuing non-compliance with the rule of law by joining the international community in the censure and sanction of the illegal Israeli occupation and colonization of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.

In so doing, we affirm the universality of our basic human rights, and protest their selective application by the Canadian government.

WE CALL ON PEOPLE OF ALL BACKGROUNDS TO JOIN US IN THIS CAMPAIGN.

END THE OCCUPATION NOW.

1,391 signers as of February, 2010

Where individual names are followed by an organizational affiliation in brackets and with an asterisk (*), this is to indicate the affiliation is only for purposes of identification. When an organization as a whole has endorsed the statement, the name of the organization appears separately.

Bill Saunders (President, Vancouver and District Labour Council)*

Judy Rebick (New Political Initiative)

Denise Nadeau

Vancouver Non-violent Training Collective

Nettie Wild, film maker

George Heyman, (President, BC Government and Service Employees Union)*

Where individual names are followed by an organizational affiliation in brackets and with an asterisk (*), this is to indicate the affiliation is only for purposes of identification. When an organization as a whole has endorsed the statement, the name of the organization appears separately.

To add your name or the name of your organization to this statement write to: mailto:support@canpalnet.ca?subject=End The Occupation statement requesting to be added. Please include your name and city. We aim to promote the statement and signers publicly. Check the letters already sent out (see the links on the Activities page) for what has been done with the statement so far.

________________________________________________________________________Prepared by The Canada Palestine Support Network (Canpalnet)support@canpalnet.cahttp://www.canpalnet.ca//Tel: 604-534-8275 or 604-298-9638Fax: 604-298-9638Contact Canpalnet to join this campaign

Zaytouna-Oliva Women DeportedDetails Emerge about the Capture

Messina, Italy:All 13 of the women on the Women’s Boat to Gaza are currently in the process of deportation after being captured by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and detained in a prison at Ashdod. Wendy Goldsmith, a member of the land team working to secure the release of the women stated that, “the deportation was much quicker than in prior flotillas. While we had a great legal team assisting the women, we suspect that the reason for the quick release was because of all the negative media attention Israel has been receiving for its illegal interception.”

According to early reports from the women released, the Zaytouna-Oliva was surrounded by two warships along with four to five smaller naval boats. The IDF gave warning to the Zaytouna-Oliva to stop their course towards Gaza. When the warning was refused, at least 7 IDF members, both male and female, boarded the Zaytouna-Oliva and commandeered the sailboat. This happened in international waters.

In the course of their capture, the women persisted in telling the IDF that Israel’s interception of their boat was illegal and that they were being taken against their will to Israel.